Author of Sweet Offerings (2009, Asian edition 2011) and Bitter-Sweet Harvest (2012), Chan Ling Yap is writing her third novel New Beginnings. You can read more about her and her books on www.chanlingyap.comIf you’d like to create a Guest List please email fiona@openingthebook.com

The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959, this is a brilliant story. Each of the daughters has a voice which is completely their own and you see this world through their eyes. I cannot recommend it highly enough, a must read!

Extract

Man oh man are we in for it now, was my thinking about the Congo from the instant we first set foot. We are supposed to be calling the shots here, but it doesn't look to me like we're in charge of a thing, not even our own selves.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

A compelling novel about the miserable lot of young women in war torn Afghanistan. Mariam is sent to Kabul, aged 15 , to marry Rasheed – a much older man. This is the story of her unhappy life – but also an unexpected and life-enhancing friendship. Will stay with you long after that final page.

Extract

' ... I'm a different breed of man, Mariam. Where I come from, one wrong look, one improper word and blood is spilled. Where I come from, a woman's face is her husband's business only. I want you to remember that. Do you understand?' Mariam nodded. When he extended the bag to her she took it. The earlier pleasure over his approval of her cooking had evaporated. In its stead, a sensation of shrinking. This man's will felt to Mariam as imposing and immovable as the Safid-koh mountains looming over Gul Daman. Mariam had never before worn a burqa. Rasheed had to help her put it on. The padded headpiece felt tight and heavy on her skull and it was strange seeing the word through a mesh screen. She practised walking around her room in it and kept stepping on the hem and stumbling. The loss of peripheral vision was unnerving and she did not like the way the pleated cloth kept pressing against her mouth. 'You'll get used to it' Rasheed said. 'With time, I bet you'll even like it.'

The Help

Kathryn Stockett

This is not just another book about the American deep south. The focus of the story is the bravery of a group of women who stand up for what they believe to be right. Told from three different perspectives, the first person narrative allows us to enter the minds of the characters which makes them very real. The author's background suggests she may have known people who experienced similar situations. Definitely one to read.

Extract

I don't know what she does for five minutes on the second floor. I don't like it up there though. Those bedrooms should be stacked up with kids laughing and hollering and pooping up the place. But it's none of my business what Miss Celia does with her day, and ask me, I'm glad she's staying out of my way.... Even though she has zero kids and nothing to do all day, she is the laziest woman I've ever seen. Including my sister Doreena who never lifted a royal finger growing up because she had the heart defect we later found out was a fly on the X-ray machine.

One Day

David Nicholls

This is a book just begging for a film treatment and after a few pages you may find yourself mentally casting the main characters. It covers two decades of a will they/won't they, bittersweet relationship - a feel-good 'romcom', with the emphasis on comedy, like a British version of When Harry Met Sally. If you enjoyed that film (and who didn't?) you will love this, but be prepared for tears as well as laughter.

Extract

'Don't I know you?'

'Your face certainly rings a bell.'

'Yours too. You look different though.'

'Yes, I'm the only woman here who's drenched in sweat,' said Emma, plucking at the fabric beneath her arms.

'You mean "perspiration".'

'Actually, no, this is sweat. I look like I've been dragged from a lake. Natural silk my eye!'

'Sort of an oriental theme, isn't it?'

'I call it my Fall of Saigon look. Chinese technically. Of course the trouble with one of these dresses is forty minutes later you want another one!' she said, and had that feeling, halfway through the sentence that she would have been better off not starting it. Did she imagine it, or did he roll his eyes a little? 'Sorry.'

The Memory of Love

Aminatta Forna

Adrian Lockheart, a psychiatrist, leaves England to work in Sierra Leone in the wake of civil war. There he finds friendship – from both colleagues and patients – all whom have secrets to keep and stories to tell. A compelling story of betrayal, love and longing - and relationships torn apart by a country at war.

Extract

In this country there is no dawn. No spring or autumn. Nature is an abrupt timekeeper. About daybreak there is nothing in the least ambiguous, it is dark or it is light, with barely a sliver in between. Adrian wakes to the light. The air is heavy and carries the faint odour of mould, like a cricket pavilion entered for the first time in the season, it is always there, stronger in the morning and on some days more than others. It pervades everything, the bed sheets, towels, his clothes. Dust and mould. Outside his window somebody is talking in a loud voice. He has no idea what they are saying. For a moment his mind drifts with the thought. To be surrounded by languages you don't understand. Of how it must, in some ways, be like being deaf.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden

If you know nothing about the role of the Geisha then this is a great opportunity to take an in-depth look at the Geisha training and way of life. It's fascinating, strange and beautiful and will leave you wanting to find out more.

Extract

'If an apprentice geisha acts the way you did just then - pouring tea like a maid would - the poor man will lose all hope. Try it again, but first show me your arm.'

So I drew my sleeve up above my elbow and held my arm out for her to see. She took it and turned it in her hands to look at the top and the bottom.

'You have a lovely arm; and beautiful skin. You should make sure every man who sits near you sees it at least once.'

When We Were Orphans

Kazuo Ishiguro

An absorbing and unusual mystery switching between the protagonist's adult life in London and his childhood in Shanghai. The fluid style of writing made me want to read everything else this author has ever written. I'm enchanted.

Extract

I ran down Kiukiang Road, across the hard uneven stones of Yunnan Road, pushed through more crowds along Nanking Road. When at last I reached Bubbling Well Road, my breath was already coming in gasps, but I was encouraged that I now had only this one long straight road, relatively free of people ....

Then at last I was going past the American consul's residence, and then the Robertsons' house. I turned off Bubbling Well Road into our road and a second wind took me the remaining distance to our gate.

I knew as soon as I turned through our gateway - though there was nothing obvious to tell me so - that I was too late, that the thing had finished long ago. I found the front door bolted. I ran to the back door, which opened for me, and ran through the house shouting for some reason not for my mother, but for Mei Li - perhaps even at that stage, I did not wish to acknowledge the implications of shouting for my mother.

The house appeared to be empty. Then as I was standing bewildered in the entrance hall, I heard a giggling sound ....

It dawned on me then that Mei Li was weepng, and I knew as I had known throughout that punishing run home, that my mother was gone.

The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan

A compelling look at both generation and culture gaps as they affect mother/daughter relationships. The different 'voices' are difficult to unravel at first - but the stories are well worth the effort.

Extract

My daughter did not look pleased when I told her this, that she didn't look Chinese. She had a sour American look on her face.

The Sense of an Ending

Julian Barnes

This is a warm, conversational read, which feels like catching up with an old friend over a drink - a friend you maybe don't entirely agree with, who isn't afraid to show off his middle-class privilege, but whom you still enjoy seeing every few weeks, not least to find out the latest gossip he's heard since you last met.

Extract

There seemed nothing left to look forward to. I was alone with two voices speaking clearly in my head: Margaret's saying, 'Tony, you're on your own now,' and Veronica's saying, 'You just don't get it .... You never did, and you never will.'

The Outcast

Sadie Jones

This evocative depiction of postwar austerity Britain lifts the lid on the hypercritical, repressed 'cocktail society' of the Home Counties middle class. In a classic story of transgression and redemption, Sadie Jones shows the devastating effect of suppressed grief and love denied. Be prepared to go through the emotional wringer!

Extract

The car keys were in his pocket. They hadn't fallen out while he was fucking Alice. He went out of the front door and got in the car. He drove out onto the road, holding the bottle in one hand, and drank as much as he could without choking.

The day was hot and sunny; it didn't know what had happened. You'd think the sky would be black and stormy once you'd had your stepmother on a Sunday afternoon, but it wasn't. It was high and blue and empty. The road was twisting and Lewis drank some more and then put the bottle between his legs to steer better. He went fast and couldn't feel the gin at all, and thought that if he could kill himself driving it would be a good thing.